ABSTRACT

To reach the final consumers, products need to be distributed, and thus the channel of distribution become of utmost importance. Markets are becoming increasingly international resulting in many companies being located further away from their buyers and final customers. The main objective of this study was to investigate the role of distributors in growth of agrochemical companies. Specific objectives were aimed to find out the role of firm infrastructure to accommodate distributors , role of capability of distributors in marketing , role of distributor as a relationship officer and role of logistic capability of distributors in handling organization logistics enhancing growth of in agrochemical industry in Kenya. The research design adopted was the survey design where the population of interest comprised of 39agrochemical companies registered with the Agrochemicals Association Kenya.Due to the small size of the population of the study, a census was carried out where the whole population was studied. Quantitative data was analyzed by use mean and percentages. The overall average rating of growth experienced by the agrochemical firms in the last 5 years (2011-2015) was 3.2. Overall, effect of firm characteristics on growth of agrochemical products was rated at a mean of 3.8. Overall, the average rating for the effect of marketing capability was 4.3. Its greatest effect was reported on market size rated at 4.4.The overall mean rating on the extent of the effect of relationship intensity on growth of agrochemical products was 3.7.On logistic capability of distributors, a vast majority (97%) of the respondents confirmed they had a distributor / agrochemical network in the County.93.9% asserted that there products were in the small towns too in addition to being in the cities. It was concluded that revenue generation, timely payment, inventory holding support, loyalty, brand/image building and submission of reports are significantly useful in performance evaluation.

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